Full-time portraiture and music photographer. An actuarial consultant in the past. A Mac & Blackbbery addict. A Leo. Roar.

Tag Archives: concert

With the number of gigs I’m attending, I’m hitting with a few backlogs of pictures to be selected and edited. I still have pictures from Laundry session from last Thursday and the Thursday before that but I guess that can wait. For this gig, we return to the same venue where Search held its concert which is the Bukit Kiara Equestrian resort. (With the number of events held at the polo field, it will only be a matter of time before the members at the Bukit Kiara club strike back. I mean, the noise pollution and garbage from the events are just not good for the horses. I’ve stopped horse riding for 10 years but if I was spending RM20,000 per month on maintaining my horses, I would want it to be top-notch service, no?) Anyway. Side rant.

This gig was held as part of the Kuala Lumpur Bike Rally 2009 where (I assume) bikers from around the ASEAN countries (I remembered there was an Australian team – if I’m not mistaken) gather around to… err..parade their bikes? Anyway, I’m not much a fan of bikes even though dad did had one when I was growing up. I think it was a Gold Wing and Ducati. Ah good times. Anyway. The stream of bikes came in some time around 9pm when the rain halted. It’s been raining every afternoon in KL and for this day it was no exception. The rain began pouring at 5pm and thankfully stopped in time before the Indie bands started their show.

First impression of the stage: lighting was much much better than the Search concert. Sounded better too but according to the Pesawat boys, the monitors were a bit on the low side. There were two screens on each side of the stage where a video of bike rallies from other countries (most likely the States) were on replay. Here comes rant number two. So Beyonce was not allowed to perform 2 years back because she wore sexy clothes and it was derogatory to the Muslim image of the country. But here, in full view (or should I say sebesar alam), girls were clad in skimpy bikinis or butt-cut-out pants parading their assets on the video. I kid you not, the videos were very distracting.

Turn out was pretty small. Again, obviously due to the rain but it slowly picked up towards the end of the night. When me and the boys first arrived, I swore the ratio of photographers (i.e. those with a dSLR) was 5 to 1. *chuckles* There were no barriers set up in front of the stage so that made easier access for the photographers to get up-close to the performers. A good thing I guess if you have the crowd under control – which was not really a problem if the crowd is small. My intention was just to shoot Pesawat but I can’t help get hyped up by the energy of Incarnation – head-banging music almost always produce good photos.

When I was first informed of the event just a few days ago, my thought was it would be held inside Urbanattic at CapSquare. I did not know it was a full-blown rock concert until just a few minutes before I left home for the event as I checked the live-feed that the organizers had on the Rockaway concert. So anyhow, me and Azri arrived at CapSquare around 6pm, just before the break started (the concert started as early as 1pm). While killing time before the show continues at 8pm, we scouted, had drinks and I told Azri how it’d be cool if I’m daring enough to approach the punk kids to take photos of them. I just love their fashion style – the piercing, the red/yellow jeans, the rock t-shirts. 7.30pm finally came and we positioned ourselves right in front of the stage. My thought is that if anything happens in the mosh pit, I’d be safe up at the front. Boy, I was wrong. As soon as the band Restraint started on their first song, the crowd went nuts. Azri wasn’t so lucky when a foot smacked him right in the head. Ouch :\ From then onwards, we just stood and shot the performance from the side of the pit. All in all, it was a great experience though I think that’ll be the last that I’ll ever be in a mosh pit. I got some 900 shots which I’ll put up in parts over the next few days. First up is the friend’s band, Pesawat. If you don’t know them, head over to youtube and search for ‘Pesawat Mirage’. Check out the videoclip – awesome deh!